The Children's Museum with Zachary and Eric

While in Mississippi, I went to a Children's
Museum with Zachary and Eric. We spent most of the day there and had a great time.

Both boys got thoroughly wet playing with boats in the water and they really enjoyed playing with the construction equipment. The climbling wall was a big hit and they went back several times. They were really quite interested in the earthquakes and tsunamis and put on lab coats to study oil drilling and climb through the "mine" tunnels.

Being a turtle was fun since we had just seen a turtle in their front yard that day.
This video shows the boys dancing with a dance/exercise game. They did much better than I did.

Wendy and Hyrum

Hyrum was 2 weeks old when I left Mississippi. I got some photos of him with his eyes open. He is cute little fellow but doesn't look much like his two brothers yet.

Wendy is as cute as ever, with a ready smile and an infectious giggle. When you ask her to smile for the camera she crinkles up her eyes and really plays it up for the camera.







I asked Wendy to show me "happy" and "sad". Happy is easy, but sad is always eyes closed and a puckered up mouth. She really tries to do "sad", but it is difficult. I thought it was cute.

The new Flamm home

when I got to Mississippi the Flamm's were living in their new home but their furniture had not yet arrived. They had a sofa, a bed, 2 blow up mattresses, a card table and 5 folding chairs. On Tuesday the moving company finally showed up.
The front room and the dining room (which
they are using for a computer/music area) were very empty when I got there.
When I left the furnture was inplace but
there were still lots of boxes to unpack.


The deck and back yard are wonderfully large and absolutely perfect for kids. They all love that part of the house.
The video below shows the kids playing in the backyard.

"The Tornado"

So... tonight Grandma Schwieder called to ask about the tornado in Jackson, Mississippi. We told her about the tornado warning sirens that went off most of the morning and part of the afternoon and about the violent thunder and wind storm we had but that was all. Well, after speaking with Grandma, a neighbor came by with some home made blueberry coffee cake to introduce herself and she started talking about "the tornado". It turns out that it came much closer to us then we had thought. She mentioned how she was quite nervous today and wanted to make sure we were okay. MiKell admitted that we didn't know enough to be nervous.

Anyway, I guess while MiKell was picking up Zach from preschool at about noon, the storm was heading across the reservoir which is quite close by here. She noticed that there were hardly any cars on the road but thought it was just because of the horizontal rain. Shows how much we know. We thought we were just experiencing a fierce thunder storm. Instead we were on the fringes of a tornado! What's really funny is that when it was at it's worst, I tried to get some pictures of it to put on my blog. It was really wild. But the pictures didn't really show anything. When Zach got home from school he was quite indignant because he had to sit in the hallway half of the day. He said it was so "boring". Later the storm turned and came back across the reservoir, and it did touch down in Clinton. Kyle came home from work about 2 PM because they wouldn't let them stay in the building, and it took him awhile to get home because he had to find a route where trees weren't across the roads. That is our exciting experience which we didn't even know we were experiencing! I do hope it is the closest I ever get to a tornado.

PS. At church Sunday (yesterday) the Bishop announced the volunteer efforts to help with clean up. The tornado touched down in three places. One man in Sunday School spoke of his car getting picked up out of the parking lot and thrown against the building where he worked. He was glad they were still in the building!

Welcome number 13!

Hyrum Frederick, grandbaby number 13, was born April 9. He is beautiful! MiKell and baby are now home and both are doing well. Hyrum has dark hair, but I have only seen
his eyes once so I don't know what color they are. He has a soft little cry, but he does know how to use it.


All the family welcomed Hyrum. Wendy was fascinated and everyone had to have a turn holding him.




Eric had to count his toes to make sure there were ten and Wendy gave him a kiss.

We have a PRETTY Car

YES, WE BOUGHT A NEW CAR! And it is even a PRETTY color. The color was my only criteria. I absolutely refused to buy another neutral colored car - no gray, tan, white, off white, gold, black or almost black. NO SIR! Luckily David had a few other criteria so we ended up with a good car as well. It is a Subaru Legacy and is a 2011 but not brand new. We like it a lot! David decided he looks good enough in it that he should use it for work but that would leave
me with the almost black SUV so you know what my opinion of that idea was.